Friday, December 21, 2018

Happy Trails, All Over Albany

Earlier this week, the sad news came out that the website
All Over Albany would stop putting up new content at the end of the year. I’d say
I pop on to their website somewhere between 4 and 6 times a week to check in
and see what’s going on in town. I expect I’ll probably just keep automatically
clicking on the bookmark for a while.

I have no idea how Greg or Mary from All Over Albany stumbled
onto my blog and started including it in their weekly “What’s Up in the
Neighborhood” round up. I’m not even sure how long ago it was. But ever since
then, I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the All Over Albany extended
family. What a great group of people.

As my blog posts shifted from barbecue toward cured/smoked
meats and then settling into the current pizza obsession, All Over Albany kept
tabs on my general insanity. At some point (I think it might have been after I made
up a betting point spread and over/under line for TheTournament of Pizza
final round), I had droned on enough about pizza that I was invited to
be a judge in the final Tournament of
Pizza. Would you believe I almost turned down the offer? No joke. Politely
declining the offer was something I considered and there was a drafted in an
email explaining why. I mean, how colossally
stupid would that have been?

The reason my irrational brain came up with to pass on The Tournament was because a daydream I had. One
year The Tournament had a mystery entry.
The mystery entry in each bracket turned out to be a chain pizza. The daydream was to compete as a mystery
entry and run the table. I wanted to win The
Tournament of Pizza. As someone that would have been a judge, it felt like
a conflict of interest to jump over into the competition side of The Tournament. That’s how into their Tournament of Pizza my pizza obsessed
brain got. I worked myself up into a bizarre ethical conflict that most likely
didn’t exist. In a very long winded
email (that I still have), I explained why I was conflicted by outlining the
whole daydream to Mary. “The plan is that in 2016 or 17, I’m going to ask you
and Greg if I could compete as a ‘Mystery’ entrant” is something I wrote to
someone I didn’t really know very well. Mary, who was probably thinking, “Oh
no, what did we get ourselves into?” talked me down by telling might be the
last Tournament and she couldn’t see why judging one year would knock me out of
any possible future competitions. Deep down I must have known the conflict of interest
thing was stupid. With a future title still a possibility for me, I joined the judging panel and had a blast. Eating pizza and hyper analyzing it with other
people who are crazy enough to hyper analyze pizza is just the best.

After The Tournament,
I was invited to other events and projects Greg and Mary organized for All Over
Albany. Many of the emails leading up to these events are about getting the
gang back together for something. A mini pizza tour. I wrote about raising some
cattle (an essay that Greg edited into one of the best things I’ve written). A
burger tour. The AOA birthday parties. A pizza party in my garage (which I want
to host again now that I’m cooking in the wood oven). A recent ice cream tasting.

There was also an annual end of year end request asking
several people to briefly write about the best thing they ate this year. Greg’s
specific instruction was to not spend a lot of time on it. Well, I take my All
Over Albany assignments seriously so it was in the back of mind all year. “Wow,
that’s good. Is it worthy of the best thing I ate all year? I don’t know. I’ll
file it as a maybe.” I’m not sure if they will do the annual column next week,
but I have my 2018 pick ready to go if they do.

Being part of the All Over Albany community was an honor. One I will no doubt miss. Instead
of getting sad that there will no longer be an All Over Albany with its unique
coverage of local politics, stories, maps, Snowpocolypse winter storm ratings,
and seasonal moment photos, we should look forward to whatever Greg and Mary do
next. Doesn’t matter if it is together, each on their own or Albany even based. Whatever project they work
on next is going to be great. No doubt in my mind. Best of luck for a wonderful 2019, Greg and Mary.

And let’s get the gang back together for a pizza party. My
house. Got a few new topping combinations I want the gang to try.

About Me

I've always be interested in cooking. I once thought about it as a career. In the end, I decided to go into bridge engineering and throw dinner parties whenever the mood struck. The hours are a little better.
For the past few years, pizza has been kind of an obsession.